Phantom of Riverside Park

by Peggy Webb

  It was Sunday morning, Nicky was in the tub, and it was the first chance she’d had to talk to her grandfather. Elizabeth had spent the last five minutes telling him how she got past the security guard at the Lassiter Building merely by flashing her cleaning supplies and her smile.

  “I’ll bet you a pretty, Lassiter didn’t know you were shakin’.”

  “He didn’t. I was in my General Patton mode. Instead of storming across Europe I was cornering the phantom in his own den.”

  “What’s he like?”

  She couldn’t answer Papa’s question. How could she explain a man who scared her so badly he made her knees shake and her mouth go dry and at the same time made her feel as if she’d known him for years?

  “It was dark in his office. I couldn’t see him.”

  “You don’t have to see a man to know him. I taught you better than that.”

  Papa was nobody’s fool. She should have known better than to try and duck his question.

  “It’s hard to say, Papa. He’s a complex man. Aloof one minute and very approachable the next. He told me he knows how to use a mop and bucket.”

  “He didn’t inherit all that money, you know. He earned it. You gotta respect a man who knows how to work.”

  They fell into silence, both thinking about a man who not only knew how to work but how to amass a fortune so great that he gave away checks to complete strangers. It was incomprehensible to Elizabeth that while she’d searched out David Lassiter with the express purpose of finding out why he’d sent the check and what he expected to gain by it, she’d done no more than pass lightly over the real issues while she’d spent a fair amount of time dwelling on personalities.

  Even crazier was the fact she now dreamed about him. In her dreams she was always lost in thick fog and the only thing that could possibly save her was the sound of his voice calling to her from a distance.

  “Trust the gargoyle,” he said over and over. “Trust the gargoyle.”

  His check still lay at the bottom of the cookie jar, the gargoyle logo in the corner the first thing she saw every time she took off the lid. She could tell by the way Papa kept cutting his eyes in the direction of the cookie jar that he was thinking of the money, too.

  “I’m guessin’ he’s a good man, Elizabeth.”

  “Still, Papa, I can’t take his charity.”

  “What are you goin’ to do, then?”

  “I thought about sending it back.”

  Papa watched her, the only sound in the room the dripping of the kitchen faucet. Then a child’s voice filled the air with song. Down the hall Nicky was belting out an earnest version of “You Are My Sunshine.”

  “You’ll never know, Bear, how much I luv me ‘n you,” he warbled.

  Her son was singing to his favorite teddy bear who kept a watchful, one-eyed look from the toilet seat while Nicky splashed around in a tubful of bubbles that smelled like green apples. Elizabeth listened with her heart, and quite suddenly she started to cry.

  Papa didn’t say a word. He just came around the kitchen table and put a hand on her shoulder, the strong gnarled hand that had guided a steady course for the last five years. She leaned her cheek against his hand, and with the other he stroked her hair.

  When she’d been a child he’d always taken care of her. No matter what. When Manny and Judith were too busy to notice that she needed new shoes, Papa quietly carried her to Sears and Roebuck and bought a pair of cotton canvas tennis shoes, bright pink because Elizabeth said the fairy princess who lived in the chinaberry tree in her back yard wore pink shoes. When Judith got overzealous with the ruler and slapped Elizabeth’s knuckles until they were bright red, Papa was the one who intervened. Elizabeth never knew what he said to her mother, but she’d watched from her bedroom window as he carried the ruler onto the front porch and smashed it with his hammer. Forever after, Elizabeth’s knuckles were safe.

  And that time she’d had pneumonia, it was Papa who never left her side.

  He had always done whatever it took not only to make her life bearable but to make it--sometimes--wonderful.

  She pressed her cheek into Papa’s hand and when she smiled up at him, he went to the sink, tore off a paper towel and wiped her face.

  “I have to go back, Papa.”

  “I know you do, Elizabeth.”

  From down the hall Nicky wound up his musical number with a plaintive plea.

  “Please don’t snaatch my sunnshiine todaaay. Ta daah! I’m all clean now. Can I get out?”

  Elizabeth moved to the doorway. “Even your ears?” she called.

  “Whoops! Sorry ‘bout that.”

  “I don’t want to see a speck of dirt. Do you hear me, young man?”

  “I did, but Bear didn’t. Is it all right if he has dirty ears?”

  “Only till next Tuesday, and then he’s going into the washing machine.”

  Papa was already at the sink stacking dirty dishes.

  “Sit down, Papa. I’ll do that.”

  “I’m not too old, you know.”

  “I know.”

  Thinking about what she had to do, she turned on the faucet and fear rose up from the hot water along with the steam. What if David Lassiter wouldn’t see her again? And what if he said no?

  Elizabeth grabbed the liquid soap and hung onto the bottle as if it were a life raft. Joy, the label said. She always bought it because of the name. She liked to see it sitting on her kitchen cabinet, jaunty and hopeful, as if going by a certain name could make it so.

  Still clutching the bottle, she turned to Papa.

  “He’s my only hope for Nicky.”

  o0o

  “I want you to find out everything you can about Taylor Belliveau.”

  Peter Forrest sat in David’s office in the chair McKenzie always used, and nodded as he listened to his boss. He was twenty-seven and looked eighteen, in spite of the fact that David required god-awful hours from him and Herculean tasks that would daunt lesser men.

  But Peter Forrest was not the kind of man to be daunted by anything. A direct descendant of Nathan Bedford Forrest, the Confederate general and brilliant strategist who led the Union Army on a merry chase throughout the South and years later was studied by German tacticians at Brice’s Crossroads, Peter sometimes seemed to be a reincarnation of his famous ancestor.

  Brilliant, charismatic, and a born leader, he was exactly the kind of man David would want his son to grow up to be ...if he had a son.

  The aching void he’d been plagued with lately opened up and threatened to swallow him. Maybe he needed some time off. Maybe he ought to go to Italy and lose himself in the magnificent art. Though he would never allow himself to be seen at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, he traveled abroad with impunity. Nobody knew him and nobody cared.

  Nobody cared.

  The thought saddened him beyond imagining. Except for McKenzie he was a man without a family.

  Then why was he interested in Taylor Belliveau? Elizabeth had turned the money down. Why didn’t he just let the whole thing go?

  “In particular, I want to know as much as you can find out regarding his relationship with Elizabeth Jennings.”

  Belliveau was only a footnote in the file he’d already given Peter--Taylor Belliveau, father of Elizabeth’s baby, not named on the birth certificate, son of a Delta land baron. By evening Peter would have memorized every word in Elizabeth’s file. He would find the gaps, then go out and fill in the missing pieces.

  “Take all the time you need. Use the farm as a base if you like. That’ll put you closer to Tunica.”

  As well as to McKenzie. David worried about her. Since her husband’s death she’d become almost as reclusive as he. It would do her good to have Peter on the premises.

  Besides, it would salve David’s conscience about not seeing her as often as he should.

  Peter stuffed the file into his briefcase. “Will your sister be there?”

  “Yes, she’ll be there. Tell her I said to make you
welcome.”

  “Not unless I want to get chewed out.”

  “Her bark’s worse than her bite.”

  “You can’t prove it by me.”

  “She likes you. Otherwise she’d never have invited you to ride horses with her last Christmas.”

  “That was no horse she gave me. It was a spawn of the devil. And by the way, she didn’t invite me. I invited myself.”

  “Do you play gin rummy, Peter?”

  “No.”

  “You might want to learn.” He grinned. “By the way, McKenzie cheats.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  By the time he got to New Albany, Peter Forrest would be an expert in gin rummy. David knew that for a fact.

  He told his assistant goodbye, then scanned the messages his secretary had placed on his desk.

  All at once they had David’s full attention. Elizabeth Jennings had called. Four times. Since she wasn’t on the list of persons who had telephone access to David, she’d been refused her request to speak directly to him.

  Shoving his messages aside, David reached for the phone.

  Chapter Ten

  Elizabeth was boxing raspberry jelly doughnuts when Celine stuck her head out of the office and yelled, “Telephone!”

  “For me?” Papa would never call her at work unless it was an emergency. Elizabeth was so upset she nearly dropped the box of doughnuts.

  “Are you gonna take all day?” Celine said, and Elizabeth ran to get the receiver.

  “Hello?”

  “This is David Lassiter,” her caller said, and she nearly died on the spot. “You called.”

  It was not a question but a statement, a signal that he was a busy man and she was a pesky interruption.

  All nerve endings, Elizabeth twisted the phone cord.

  “Yes, I called because...” She sputtered to a stop, her mind a total blank. All she could do was stare at the raspberry jelly she’d smeared on her fingers.

  Celine’s harsh voice made her jump. “Are you gonna stand there all day dawdling, or are you gonna finish and get back to work? This is a business phone, you know.”

  Elizabeth had about three minutes to convince David to let her see him, and if she couldn’t do that she might as well call it a day, for she’d never get another chance. Not unless she wormed her way back into his office building again, and she didn’t figure that would happen in this century or the next. A man like David Lassiter would never allow that sort of breach in his security system twice

  Belatedly she felt sorry for the unfortunate night watchman. She hoped he hadn’t lost his job.

  “I called because I absolutely have to talk to you,” she finally blurted out. “It’s very important.”

  “What is the nature of your business?”

  He sounded so formal, so distant. Funny. When she’d been in his office talking to him face to face, she’d had the feeling that he was a warm and caring man in spite of his reclusive ways.

  Actually there’d been nothing face-to-face about the encounter. He’d been completely hidden in shadow. She wondered what he looked like, whether his face would match the kindness and humor she’d heard in his voice.

  “It’s about the money,” she said.

  “It’s yours. You can spend it any way you like.”

  “No, no, it’s not that. I have to talk with you about it.”

  “I’ll have my secretary set up an appointment for you with my bookkeeper. George handles all those matters.”

  “I’m not your personal dating service, missy,” Celine bellowed out. “You got about two minutes to get off that phone and get back to work.”

  Elizabeth covered the receiver in a vain attempt to keep David Lassiter from knowing she was the kind of woman other people yelled at. The humiliation of it all. The indignity.

  “Oh, please....” If the end justified the means, she wasn’t above begging. “I must see you. My son’s future depends on it.”

  In the small silent eternity that followed, she closed her eyes and prayed.

  “I’ll send a car for you this evening at seven,” David said.

  o0o

  The first thing Elizabeth did when she got home was tell Papa the good news.

  He was at the kitchen table looking at his color brochures from John Deere, and when he saw her he quickly slid them under his paper then pretended he was reading the news.

  “Guess who called me right out of the blue?” she said. The sounds of laughter and a Looney Tunes cartoon came from the direction of the den.

  “The Mayor of Memphis?” Papa said, and Elizabeth shook her head, laughing. “The President of the United States?”

  “No. David Lassiter.”

  “Well, will wonders never cease?”

  “He called me at the bakery, of all things. Celine was fit to be tied. All the while I was trying to talk, she kept shouting, ‘This is a business phone, you know,’ and ‘I’m not your personal dating service, missy.’ I’m certain he heard. I was mortified.”

  And scared. She still was. The thing she’d prayed for was about to come to pass, and she suddenly found herself unable to keep a coherent thought in her head.

  “I thought something good was fixin’ to happen,” Papa said. “I went outside last night and there was Lola Mae’s star.”

  Elizabeth had heard him leave his bedroom and go outside, but she hadn’t followed. She’d only gone to the window to make sure he was engaging in his ritual rather than wandering off, lost. Papa believed that after her death Lola Mae Jennings had become a star, in addition to the other celestial role she’d assumed, and that he could commune with her simply by gazing into the heavens.

  While Elizabeth didn’t quite believe he was seeing Lola Mae in a star, she did believe in the transforming quality of love, and standing there at her window she’d cried, cried for the beauty and the loneliness it all.

  She could nearly cry again, just remembering. Papa left the kitchen table and hugged her.

  “Don’t worry about tonight. You’re gonna be just fine.”

  She didn’t tell him it wasn’t tonight she was worried about so much as all the rest of the nights of her life.

  “Thank you, Papa,” she said, and then she hurried to get dressed.

  As she ransacked her closet looking for something to wear, it emerged that she had nothing suitable for a mission of mercy. It would have been different if she were the one on the giving end, then she could wear any old thing she pleased and still be in the seat of power.

  But Elizabeth was on the receiving end. At least, she hoped she would be. And she had no intention of approaching the mercy seat looking like a beggar.

  Her barren closet mocked her. Now she knew how Scarlett had felt when she tore down the velvet curtains to make herself a dress. The thing was, Elizabeth had no velvet curtains.

  What she did have was a pink dress she’d bought for her wedding, in spite of the fact that Taylor Belliveau had said he would never marry her. When her stubborn hope finally died, she’d hung the dress in her closet, a forlorn reminder of how her past stood over her and shouted so loudly she might as well be wearing a label that said, Not Good Enough.

  Although the dress was five years out of date, Elizabeth put in on. The surprise of seeing herself looking like somebody’s girlfriend instead of somebody’s mother and the sole breadwinner of her household set her to remembering the day she’d bought the dress.

  It had been eighty degrees that day, never mind that it was October. But that’s how it is in Mississippi, with some months that can’t make up their minds whether it’s fall or summer, winter or spring.

  In spite of the topsy-turvy weather, Elizabeth had been filled with hope that day. Her belly was just beginning to show a curve, and in her heart of hearts she knew that Taylor Belliveau would come around. How could he not change his mind when he saw she was determined to have their child?

  And so she’d spent every last penny she had on a pink maxi dress with a soft skirt that
touched her ankles and a bodice embroidered with the kind of flowers Mae Mae grew in her summer garden. Her enchanted garden, she called it, and Elizabeth knew it was so.

  Hadn’t she seen the fairies there when she was six years old and full of the magic of dreams?

  Somehow wearing the dress tonight made Elizabeth believe in dreams again, and wasn’t that exactly what she needed? Maybe she should have been wearing the dress all these years, but she’s not sorry she waited.

  If she succeeded this evening all of them could start anew--Papa, Nicky, herself. As she tied her hair back with a pink ribbon she rehearsed what she would say to David Lassiter.

  With the pink ribbon secured, Elizabeth glanced at the clock. Ten minutes till seven. If she hurried she had time to put on some makeup.

  o0o

  Thomas had never seen such a car in all his born days. It was blacker than shoe polish and stretched so far down the block he had to crane his neck to see the back end.

  The driver got out of the car, and he was wearing one of those getups Thomas had seen on the movies on late night television, the ones featuring Cary Grant. Now there was a man who knew how to do things in style.

  “Nicky, come here. I want you to see this.”

  Nicky crawled out from under the table where he’d been putting out imaginary fires with his fire truck, then raced to the window.

  “Wow!”

  “Take a good gander, Nicky. That’s a sure ‘nuff limousine.”

  “What’s a lemon zing, Papa?”

  “Something rich folks drive and folks like us drool over, that’s what.”

  When the driver walked up the cracked sidewalk, Thomas nearly busted his buttons. They’d come to fetch his granddaughter. Yessiree, this was one evening Elizabeth was going to be treated like a high-born lady.

  The doorbell pinged and Nicky began to jump up and down.

  “Can I see it, Papa? Can I?”

  “You’ll have to ask your mama. Here she comes.”

  Elizabeth was all dressed in pink, her face shiny as a new moon. She looked so much like Lola Mae, Thomas got blurry eyed and nostalgic all over again.